Hi
everyone. I just want to say I am so emotional
right now. You’re incredible, Marianne.
I was sitting here when Gloria was saying
thank you, which was like the best thing
anyone could say.

I was thinking about
you all day today - just coming here and
just holding fifteen years of your work
and all the incredible women who are involved
with Feminist.com and I think what’s so
incredible about you is your humility. You’re
just so humble; you serve, you serve, you
serve women, and everything you’ve
done since the very beginning of Feminist.com
has been about serving and moving other women
forward; and moving other women’s voices
into the world; and promoting other women;
and making other women better; and making
other women freer; and making other women
more alive and more empowered.And that’s
what Feminist.com is - it’s the site
for that. And so you’ve modeled that
for other women to do that for other women.
And I don’t think there’s anything
more important than that.

I was just thinking
about the day we were sitting in your kitchen
- Karen Obel and Susan Swan and Lauren Wechsler
and we were talking about V Day - and the
idea of V Day came in your kitchen, and it
was almost thirteen years ago. And I was
thinking how when all that started, all our
meetings at my house and your house and just,
we didn’t have any idea about what
we were doing; we had this play and we were
trying to make sense out of it, and how were
we going to build a movement; and how were
we going to get people to come and perform
it; and here you are fifteen years later
and here we are. And it’s a miracle!
It’s a miracle!

And I just want to
say to Gloria and to Carol and to Jennifer
and to Purva - there are just so many extraordinary
women in this room - and men - in this room
tonight; just the power of this small group
of people; what it’s done to impact
the entire world. It’s just extraordinary.
It’s like we’re in the hot center
of change; the hot center of transformation.
And that’s just what I really have
to say what women do and what we know how
to do. I just want to say for me having just
come out of a year that has been very profound
and very difficult and also incredibly beautiful
and coming very, very close to dying. It
really is the power of people’s prayers
and love - but really it’s the power
of potential change that kept me alive. It’s
the power of thinking, oh, we can go on and
keep struggling for change; and we can keep
struggling to liberate the women in Congo
and we can keep struggling to make women
more free and girls more able to be their
true selves. And that is what we’re
here to do. And you’ve done that. You’ve
done that. And all the women who have supported
you have allowed you to keep doing that.

And I want to honor you
from the bottom of my heart, and I want
to thank you, for all of us, whose voices
you’ve moved onto
your site; whose voices you’ve kept
alive and for being a brave feminist and
not apologizing for being a feminist and
saying you are a feminist [cheers and applause].
And putting the word right out there: Feminist.com
[laughter]; and not saying, ‘oh no,
I’m not really a feminist; I don’t
mean I’m a feminist; and I could be
a feminist’ - but like you’re
a feminist! And bless you for that, because
now it’s turning around and people
are actually beginning to get that that’s
a really good thing. So thank you, thank
you for your consistency and your bravery
and your courage and your humility and your
heart. Thank you.